Rich Boy Check: scathing satire of wealth and privilege or performative meme challenge?
According to Know Your Meme, the Rich Boy Check has flourished on TikTok, where users are showing off their material wealth, soundtracked by an audio sample announcing the RBC and Luigi Boccherini’s well-traveled “Minuet.” In the series, quite a few users engage in aspirational RBCs, or show off what appear to be their actual homes and cars, though many of them also appear to be teenagers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VHhbl5eviY
Of course, along with the “serious” videos are ones satirizing what “rich boy” actually means, and subtly addressing the race and class divides inherent in a Rich Boy Check. Quite a few people reference their AirPods in RBCs: Is that a marker of wealth now?
It’s not gendered, either. Women have subverted the Rich Boy Check for their own means.
However, the best use of the RBC goes to this user promoting her rare Beanie Baby wealth.
This is Generation Wealth distilled into 15-second frames.